I recently took advantage of the Gen 2 upgrade promo. I currently have 2 16 zone controllers running a 24 zone system separated into grass and flower zones on separate controllers. I want to be able to connect a flow meter, thus I upgraded one of the controllers using the promo discount (only 1 promo is allowed per account). How can I successfully connect the flow meter for monitoring flow to both controllers?

How can I successfully connect the flow meter for monitoring flow to both controllers?

This won’t be possible from the perspective of having the app identify zones from the controller that does not have the flow meter attached. If there is flow going through your pipes that can’t be correlated to the first device (the one with the flow meter), we can still capture the flow data, but will not be able to assign it to anything, other than a generic flow event.

In order for the flow sensor to measure from both controllers the meter would have to be placed where irrigation from either controller can be captured. We still could only correlate zone flow to the controller that the meter is attached to, but could record aggregate flow from the second controller, but would not be able to associate it with any of its zones.

You could attach the flow meter to both controllers, using optical isolation if desired. Otherwise one controller (and other sources) should be able to write realtime data to the flow register of the other controller over the lan.

I originally had all 24 zones connected to a single rain bird system and then migrated the system to the Iro. I connected all the grass zones to the first controller and all the flower zones to the second Iro controller. I make sure the flowers water in the morning and the grass at night so they don’t conflict.

I was hoping to have flow data to both determine what each zone was using in water per use as well as to make sure there isn’t a leak in a single zone. If I know what is typical for each zone and suddenly see a spike in gallons per zone I would then be suspicious of a broken head etc.

I am a fan of Rachio (3 Gen 2 controllers) and have the CST•FSI-T15-001 flow meter installed for over a year. While the meter appears to give me reasonably accurate ‘daily totals’ of water usage, the Rachio software provides NO way to see water usage by zone. For more than a year, Rachio users have been asking for high/low flow alerts and per zone water statistics with no results.

Rachio doesn’t appear to consider flow meters of any real priority or usefulness. Which is a shame, because I think it could really distinguish Rachio from it’s competitors.

I understand that watching a feature request age with what seems like no progress is incredibly frustrating. I do want to say that Rachio absolutely does view flow meters as very useful. However, from a business perspective, we have far less users who are using flow meters. Therefore, improving the core functionality of the app has been prioritized higher than things like integrations or accessory support. I want to make sure our users know that we are listening and learning and building, and all of the requests surrounding flow features are being heard. While they aren’t here right away, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t on their way!

There aren’t more users because their isn’t enough benefit (ie tracking daily water usage, notifying of broken head etc) to get users to adopt them. Also, there aren’t enough flow meters supported in the affordable price range as of yet. To me, a flow meter is an essential piece of gear for true water savings once it s FULLY supported.